So what would this have meant for us if we’d gotten a president who didn’t want to be there? Or if, say, the Russians, Iranians, North Koreans, etc. found out?
In an article that examined what went wrong with Romney’s losing 2012 presidential campaign, Tagg Romney said his father Mitt said he had no intention of running again after he did not become the Republican presidential nominee in 2008.
[…]
“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life,” Tagg Romney told the paper. “If he could have found someone else to take his place … he would have been ecstatic to step aside.”
Here’s a longer article on this.
This wouldn’t have been new. Taft didn’t really want to be their; his wife made him do it. Probably half of the people who have run for the office didn’t have it as their first choice, but the sense of civic obligation made them go. Most of them were civic minded enough to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT about it afterward, but hey.
Besides, for so long during the campaign, I often got the feeling Barack would not have cried in his beer had HE lost. How many men left the office, pining to stay? Besides Bill Clinton I mean.
“Most of them were civic minded enough to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT about it afterward”
if you’re implying Mitt Romney here, then he did keep his mouth shut.
agree though that he probably felt obligated given the alternatives.
How many men left the office, pining to stay?
How about President Nixon or Kennedy? (It’s not like you really need brains anyway.) How about Carter, Reagan, either of the Bush boobs or Clinton “the adulterer”? Perhaps you missed the fact that FDR did four terms where he died in office while playing around with his mistress! Or FDR’s distant uncle Teddy when Teddy quit only to try and get re-elected later on. And you can’t tell me that any of the pre civil war presidents didn’t want the job. Even Washington himself only did two terms since he didn’t want to be CROWNED.
About the only President I am aware of who actually didn’t want to be president was LBJ when he publicly denied his parties nomination on national television.
But then we’re not talking about ex-presidents now, are we? We’re talking about ex CANDIDATES who were NEVER president.
And we’re also hearing about this from the Romney’s KID who may be simply be pissed off about having his allowance cut. (Campaigns don’t come cheap these days, you know.)
The difference now is the average american is so dim witted, self absorbed and generally all round useless that it is the equivalent of leading a troop of monkeys. It’s pointless trying to get these lazy baboons to do anything and the less monkey-like the leader is the more they will throw their own faeces.
Best thing to do is simply mention Big Bird once and the troop will shriek with glee for weeks and vote the other one in.
I wouldn’t want to either.
Neither does Obama.
That’s why he’s in Hawaii.
Romney is just another in a long line of pathetic douchebags brought to you by the Greedy Old Party.
End of the day, when all is won and lost, history made and altered, wars won and forgotten, a president is a book case in a Texas public library.
From the longer article, Romney’s campaign strategist looked at four ways to run the campaign.
“There [were] different areas that you could go into,” Stevens said. “Talk about Mitt’s business record, Mitt‘s personal story, what Mitt would do as president . . . and why Barack Obama is bad. We tested all four equally. We were open to doing any combination, and the one that tested far and away the best, people wanted to know what Mitt Romney would do as president.”
And to my mind, this last one was where the Romney campaign was the most vague. My analogy was that he was the car salesman who promised you would love the car he would sell you. But he refused to tell you the MPG, the color, the engine, transmission, or even the make and model. All he would say is that the radio would not pick up NPR stations or drive to any Planned Parenthood clinics.
Very thoughtful and clever review. Thanks.
Alfie: any honest analysis will show the Rmoney one of the most deceitful and dishonest campaigns EVER. And they were proud of it.
America truly must be female. And like all females she has a menstrual cycle every 2 to 4 years. So can we PLEASE stop looking at the bloody rag and move on?
…And really! Romney wanted the job. Even an idiot can figure that out.
Romney simply blew it when he made his “47-percent” comment. He probably thought he was at another Bilderberg conference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
Sour Grapes 🙂
So either the whole GOP is schizo, in that they don’t want to be President, but can’t refuse to run when asked. Or they’re a bunch of two-faced liars, in that they pretended to put up a serious candidate to defeat Obama. All the while, hoping not to take over this economic mess for another four years. But they can’t let onto the voters, that that’s their plan. I’m a bit surprised they even admitted to Romney’s reluctance. But perhaps they’re attempting to cover up for some information leaks, by spinning it this way.
The other thing that strikes me odd, is how the GOP has to relearn their election strategy, like every eight years. Doesn’t anybody write this sh*t down? Or at least have some experts in the party, keeping track of what works and what doesn’t? How lame an excuse is it, that they somehow forgot what they did to get Bush II elected twice? As if the country changed that much, in 4 – 8 years, that their old strategies no longer apply. I’m not buying that.
Maybe (but it’s very unlikely), the voting public has wised up to their batch of lies, for a half decade ago. Their pre-2008 BS just doesn’t work anymore in 2012? I haven’t seen much evidence that the voting public has gotten any smarter. If anything, the reverse would seem to be true. So maybe the GOP’s old lies are way too clever, for today’s voters to be mind controlled by them. And they got to dumb things down more, for the next election.
It also didn’t help the GOP win, to repeat the same mistake that the Democrats once did, and split the party’s votes. Back in 2004, their was the Green Party. Which was mostly a faux Democratic party. And the GOP stayed unified. But in 2012, the GOP allowed a “Tea Party” to take votes away from them. Or at the very least, to take financial support away from the GOP. Smooth move. Yeah, they learned what to do, from the Democrats, to lose on purpose. Form a parasitic 3rd party, to sap the strength out of their campaign.
So if the Democrats are willing to NOT win, in 2016. They’ll probably form their own 3rd party, all over again. The GOP doesn’t need to learn from its mistakes. WE NEED TO LEARN, how they’re rigging the voting process? To suit some “higher” power’s purpose. Like the Bilderbergs.
They can’t write that shit down. It could/should/would be used as evidence at a trial.
Mittenz was probably convinced to do it for a lark by the powers that are, not realizing what a pain in the ass the electorate really is; what with demanding the truth (and getting it too.)
Mittenz quickly lost interest when he had to reveal his tax returns which showed what an expensive, useless piece of white trash he really was.
Expensive piece of white trash indeed! I said right at the beginning that Romney was all “Wrongly.” It really pissed me off when the only two choices ended up being between him and another piece of puppet shit. (Some choice.)
And yes, I’m a registered Republican. (Go Figure.)
I’m afraid to ask, but who would you like to have voted for?
He didn’t want to be president so much that he tried it twice to make sure.
That would be believable if this weren’t his second run for president, and he hadn’t been running nonstop for 8 years.
No one else wanted Romney to be President either.
Yeah, sure..Tell another one before this one gets cold
Either Romney is lying or he is a coward!
Either way, people sensing this, have spoken!
Funny, I don’t think Romney son is helping his dad’s legacy. It sounds very much like an immature, childish and losers retort, “I Didn’t Want to Be President”.
Romney proves again, he is totally unworthy of the Presidency!
Nobody is worthy of the presidency.
The past 14 election cycles proves the point.
How very TRUE! But I’d go even further and say that we haven’t had but maybe 3 or 4 Presidents since the turn of the 20th century who’ve been worth a damn. Working backwards, here’s my list of keeps (all the others can suck it):
Ronald Reagan
Harry Truman
Franklin “FDR” Roosevelt
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
I’m not too crazy about FDR for dying in his mistresses arms, but he did stick it to the Nazi’s and led the country when it needed a leader. The other guys also had some real BALLS too!
You might notice that’s 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans with the possibly of maybe one glaring omission. I just don’t think a playboy who got his brains blown out was all that good of a president. His policies were certainly admirable, but then about half the job is all about talking it up without ever actually delivering. (And what he and his predecessor actually did leave us could probably better be described as a collective rectal penetration. Funny how most everyone accepts it and even gets pissy for questioning a guy who’s family fortune was built on a criminal empire which isn’t even a crime any more.)
Kennedy was a shit head. Bay of Pigs–unforgiveable.
Got us into Vietnam–unforgiveable.
Cheated on his babe of a wife–I don’t care but not very stand up.
Hollywood.
JFK would have pulled out of Vietnam (unlike Marilyn :)) before the end of the second term.
It was pretty clear that war was a loser by the time he died.
LBJ listened to McNamara and the rest is history.
Don’t know if the story was true or not but considering some of the things that are apt to happen during the coming 4 years not wanting the job shows much more intelligence than wanting the job.
Yeah do-ill ==what does going for a “job” you don’t want show?
Write Off said, in part:
“we haven’t had but maybe 3 or 4 Presidents since the turn of the 20th century who’ve been worth a damn. Working backwards, here’s my list of keeps (all the others can suck it):
Ronald Reagan
Harry Truman
Franklin “FDR” Roosevelt
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt”
I think I’d add Eisenhower to the list.
Eisenhower?
Maybe the best general ever. Top 5 presidents? Not buying that.
He just happened to be in office when it all came together, like Clinton.
well you know George Washington didn’t want to be president, but this is a totally different situation.